


Bathsheba

by gelishan



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-04-01
Updated: 2009-04-01
Packaged: 2017-10-14 03:10:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/144699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gelishan/pseuds/gelishan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first thing Uther remembers seeing through the haze of grief is water pouring down a strong, sturdy back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bathsheba

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings:** Dubcon (ambiguous consent).  
>  **Spoilers:** Episode 8, Episode 9, Episode 12.
> 
> Thanks to [](http://sineala.livejournal.com/profile)[**sineala**](http://sineala.livejournal.com/) for what I think counts as a beta, and for encouraging me to post this.

The first thing Uther remembers seeing through the haze of grief is water pouring down a strong, sturdy back. It's nearly sundown, almost an hour since the last knight had stumbled home after training. Several days ago Gaius had gently reminded him that Yvain was gravely ill from drilling three days nonstop in the chilly rain, that Gorlois had broken his left femur. Uther doesn't remember why he once cared.

Now, the man's back is glistening under the light of the dimming sun, and he pours another bucket of cold water over his head. Uther feels a stirring of something inside him. It rests dark and warm in his gut, a desire for something other than Igraine back beside him. He imagines pressing against the muscles of that back, imagines quiet groaning against him, imagines conquering. Taking.

The man turns about, absently scrubbing at his shoulders, and freezes when he sees the king. "Milord," he whispers hoarsely. Gorlois, the selfsame knight who has been missing practices because he cannot walk. It's obvious now that Uther realizes: Gorlois is leaning heavily against the side of the stables, breathing almost as hard as he does in practice. Uther feels a brief tinge of remorse and relishes it, relishes yet another feeling breaking through the bleak numbness of these past six months.

Abruptly, he turns and stalks away, without completely understanding why. He can feel the pressure of Gorlois's curious eyes following him.

His resistance lasts only a day. He knows this man is under his protection and his leadership, but none of that matters, nothing matters but the rising tide of feeling inside him.

He begs out of his official duties (it is not the first time, but it will be the last). It is not long to Gorlois's chambers: he stands in the doorway watching for some time before Gorlois finally notices. Gorlois looks quickly away, murmuring something about being grateful for his lord's attention. Uther doesn't remember exactly what was said: he remembers only resting his hand on the other man's shoulder. When there is no response, other than a slight widening of Gorlois's eyes, he grows bolder, trailing his fingers down the man's side.

Gorlois shivers, then stills under the King's hand, and lets out a long, shaky breath. A fierce exhilaration shoots through Uther, because he knows that sound. That breath is life, and warmth, and desire. All for him, given to him. He moves closer and presses his mouth to Gorlois's neck, steadies his hands against that strong, sturdy back. The heat radiates off Gorlois's skin as Uther bends to taste the salt beading on his neck, and Gorlois whimpers.

It is a new beginning.

Uther discovers, to his surprise, that a sharp mind goes along with the sturdy back. Gorlois has always been a quiet man: a good man, Uther would have no other among his knights, but a quiet man. But now he has the king's ear, he comes alive, in his own reserved way. Many's the time they stay up several candlemarks into the night, Uther gesticulating with his wine goblet and shouting, Gorlois speaking with quiet, relentless logic. Only when the candles sputter their last and Uther runs a gloved hand along Gorlois's jawbone does Gorlois still again, and sigh.

Uther comes to enjoy this, the way that Gorlois reverts to quiet now only when Uther is tending to him. He comes to enjoy the sighs and the shivers, though many's the time he imagines Igraine's fervent moans instead. It is enough, for now. It has to be.

The world begins to regain its color; gradually, slowly enough that Uther doesn't notice at first. Food tastes good again, though he chalks that up to his increased activity. But unusual things began to happen around him. He dismisses a few of the nursemaids and begins to dine with his beautiful young son, though that will always feel awkward, and forced. His knights stop breaking legs and growing deathly ill.

And finally, he reluctantly orders a stay of the execution of sorcerers, in a surge of unexpected fellow feeling after a group of six young children is found dead, bricked in behind a fireplace. There is no evidence that any of the children were sorcerers: indeed, if they were, they would most likely have escaped. They were accused, and there was simply no one to speak for them, and too much fear.

The blinding smile Gorlois graces him with upon his return to his quarters is more than worth the twinge he feels at allowing the rest of the sorcerers to escape his grasp.

Except along with the world's color comes Uther's gradual realization that something is wrong.

\---

They are under the blankets together, Uther mouthing his way up Gorlois's chest, when Gorlois sighs. The sigh is ordinary: the frown that accompanies it is not. Uther bites at his nipple, which causes him to close his eyes briefly and whimper but does not wipe the frown from his face.

Uther stills and speaks into the side of his neck, liking the muffled sound of his voice. "What is it, Gorlois?"

"Milord?"

"You've been sighing," he nips at the tendon of his neck, "and frowning. I am not a fool. What ails you?"

Gorlois is silent, and Uther misses the sound of his sighs. "It is nothing, milord."

"Nothing that ails you is unimportant. Speak your mind, old friend."

"Sire."

Uther looks up at the odd note in his voice. Gorlois's is gazing down on him, inscrutable. And before Uther can say anything, Gorlois leans and presses his lips to Uther's.

It is the first time they have ever kissed. It is the first time Gorlois has ever touched him first.

Gorlois's lips are soft, so soft, against his. He tastes like bread and beets and stale ale, where Igraine tasted of mulled wine and violets. Somehow, today, the difference doesn't bother him. Instead, he feels fiercely joyful, triumphant, giddy in a way he hasn't since Igraine died. It scares him, the intensity of the feeling after so long without, but it feels like a part of him has healed at last.

When the two part, only Uther is breathing heavily.

"What was that for?"

For a long moment Gorlois does not reply. Then,"I would request an audience with the King." Gorlois's voice is unusually tentative, almost timid. Almost sad. "I have a boon to ask."

"Anything," Uther says, and means it.

\-----

  
The next day, Uther has his steward redecorate the hall in rich blues and purples to match Gorlois's coat of arms. It is a special sign of his favor. He knows the servants will gossip. He does not care-- no, he thinks with wonder, he does care. But he does not mind.

Gorlois sweeps in at the appointed time, and Uther feels himself smiling despite himself. Gorlois is impeccably dressed in a black velvet doublet, brown hair curling under the edges and nowhere else. Uther's smile and welcome fade, but do not disappear, from his lips as a woman trails in behind Gorlois.

Her name is Igraine, Gorlois explains. It is a coincidence that makes Uther recoil even before his mind finally processes what Gorlois is saying to him.

Igraine is carrying his child, Gorlois explains gravely. As a knight of Camelot he feels he must do the chivalrous thing and marry her. He begs the King to grant him this boon.

He looks anywhere, everywhere, but at Uther.

The smile is frozen on Uther's face. The haze is back, the thick, maddening grief-haze. But it's worse, stronger this time.. After several moments of dazed and stony silence he grants Gorlois's request-- how can he not, after all Gorlois has done for him?-- and clutches heavily to his throne as if it were a strong, broad back holding him upright. Igraine seems unmoved, as if she doesn't see the prize she's won, as if she doesn't see what this is costing Uther.

Maybe she doesn't.

When the audiences are over for the day, he calmly returns to his chamber and vomits up everything he has eaten today.

He tries to wish Gorlois well. But his resistance lasts only a matter of months. It lasts while Igraine becomes heavy with child. It lasts while Gorlois smiles a little sadly when he looks at Igraine. It lasts while Uther takes chambermaids and squires and even a few knights into his bed in an attempt to forget the taste of Gorlois's skin. It fades only when Gorlois starts leaving before their late-night arguments, going home to tend to his increasingly sickly wife.

He has given up everything else; his burgeoning happiness, his peace of mind, his healing. He cannot lose this last remnant of their friendship as well. Not to someone else.

Mercia declares war on Camelot and Gorlois is summarily sent to guard the border. Three days before the army is supposed to leave, Gorlois requests, for the second time in his life, an audience with the King. Uther almost doesn't grant it-- the whole reason Gorlois is being sent away because he needs him away, anywhere but where he can watch him be happy and slowly distance himself from the King. But he owes Gorlois his ear, at least. Just this once.

Gorlois kneels, and once again does not look at him. "I know you to be a good man, Uther. Don't do this."

Uther tries to respond, but his throat is too thick, too much hurt is welling up. There is nothing but silence.

And finally, Gorlois does look at him, smiling up at him with a resigned affection that is almost, but not quite, what Uther wants and can never have. "Make sure my wife and child are well cared for, if I do not return," he says, simply.

"I swear it, old friend." Uther can feel his voice breaking, and he holds tight to his composure-- not now, not now, no one must know how this is affecting him. "Now go. Do your duty. For the love of Camelot," he says, and claps a hand hard to Gorlois's shoulder. Uther pretends not to feel him flinch.

\---

Uther cannot care for Gorlois's wife, for she dies in childbirth, as did Uther's Igraine. Uther had almost expected it, but he does not feel remorse, not anymore. It is three weeks later when the news of Gorlois's death reaches them; _no_ , thinks Uther, _that's not what I meant, I only meant to have him away from me_. Gorlois had been denied even a hero's death fighting the Mercians; it was blood magic that killed him, cast by a rogue Druid who resented Uther's former ban on sorcery. Uther who killed him, twice over.

Uther's world is spiralling away faster, now, everything blurring into meaninglessness. Behind his eyes he sees flashes of his Igraine screaming in childbirth, the light in Gorlois's eyes and the way he would no longer look at Uther. He hardly eats anymore, and his mind is consumed with a mantra. _I could have had him, if I'd waited for his wife to die. If only I'd waited, if only I'd been patient. I could have._

Uther begins to execute sorcerers again. No one smiles at him when he does, but that doesn't matter anymore. The dinners with his son continue, because there is no other point of balance in his life, but they cannot be the same. He knows if he lets Arthur close then he will vanish, like the rest of them.

And Uther names Gorlois's child Morgana, as per Igraine's dying wishes, and he never breaks his promise to keep her safe.


End file.
